I think Queen should make their audio archives available to fans exclusively on their website. Follow the format of amny other rock bands. I think The Who have made their video archives available to fans on their websites, who think Queen should/will do it at one point? Personally I'm more interested in the audio as opposed to video since there is more unheard than unseen. Your opinions?

It would be great if they put the concert videos or live recordings on QOL which they don't think for an official release. Most of diehard fans want to see some unreleased concerts on DVD. There are many great stuff (specially from '70s) in the archives and there must be more than we all know. Audio or video, it doesn't matter. Just new things. I think we all Queen fans deserve to see all this great stuff from the greatest band. 40th anniversary was good timing for some unseen material to release but I think none of them will release in this year or even next years... Very sad...

>I think The Who have made their video archives available to fans on their websites

They haven't.

Pete made certain bits and pieces (live MP3 & .mpg) available for download during the 2000-2002 period on his personal website as well and on-tour diaries. The Who's archive remains where it is and the excitement which surrounded the announcement of the "Amazing Journey" film project that promised so much but delivered so little has never been followed up. Trinifold have, however, issued some decent material over the last few years or so, most notably the Deluxe series of re-issues.

QOL started with decent hope for fans. An extension of the OIQFC and plenty of scope. The reality was "The 100 Greatest Bootlegs" project that simply made "legitimate" a bunch of shitty audience recordings everyone had already.

QOL could be something decent with the right imagination and vision behind the scenes, but, as we've seen with the Island Remasters, it is, apparently, beyond the imagination of anyone remotely connected to QPL to come up with fresh, exciting ideas.

every Who tour since 2002 has had 99% of the gigs available online as cds. not only that, in 2006 they filmed all the gigs as well and made them available as dvds (and they look very good!).

prior to the 2005 tour, the 2006 tour and then again prior to the 2008 tour, I tried to make this point in capital letters. Sadly it never materialised. the entire 2008 tour is available in HD with a multitrack recording to go with it - but it's only collecting dust.

as far as 73-86 goes; they most likely have very decent audio of quite a number of shows, and they probably have access to more film footage than they are every likely to put out as a huge official release. all of these things would be ideal to make online exclusives. it pleases the fans no end, it does not flood the general market with obscure live releases, and they would probably make quite a bit of money from it.

it's a win win as far as I can see

(and for the sake of it, put a sticker on each release which says the quality isn't top notch, but is restored to the best of their ability)

Benn Kempster wrote: But the "Encore" CDs and DVDs are all very poor quality in terms of the audio mix.

In fact, Pete is barely audible on many of the "Wire & Glass" shows with Roger's voice being particularly poor. Not representative of The Who in any way shape or form.

I agree that some of the mixes are not ideal. But some of them I find more than satisfying considering they're basically very good bootlegs! it seems to vary from gig to gig, but I certainly have a few where I think the mix is good.

and Daltrey's voice these days is sadly not down to the mix :/ (haven't heard to ongoing Tommy tour, but he himself claims he's in better shape than before)

Screw the 100 Greatest Bootlegs project, no one cared for it anyway. Honestly I bet all of Brian's raw mono soundboard tapes sound better than those and this is what I'm talking about and more. Shows like the December 1977 Los Angeles concert, all 3 nights at the Wembley Arena in 78 that were recorded for a live album, and all the shows recorded for Live Killers like Frankfurt and Lyon. So they can't tell us they can't release poor quality stuff exclusively when they tried to give us this Top 100 Bootleg crap. There is tons of good stuff that is left unheard and more than what I just mentioned in a variety of quality that we would all be pleased with. Who knows? Maybe this is why QOL is down? But I'm just dreaming...